Type of the Paper (Review)
Research of trusted real-time electrical data transmission mechanism based on parallel proof of work algorithm
Chen Yiming, Gao Dongliang, Yang Yuxuan, Luo Jintang, Yi Li
State Grid Sichuan Economic Research Institute, Chengdu, 610041
* Correspondence: chen90sky@163.com
Abstract: Secure and reliable electricity supply is a prerequisite for the development of smart cities, and the trustworthy and efficient transmission of electrical data is the foundation for the safe and stable operation of the power grid. This paper introduces a real-time data transmission blockchain technique based on parallel proof of work algorithm. The new block generation progress of proposed blockchain is divided into five subroutines: hash pointer computation, real-time data pudding, signature value iteration, interruption, block header assembly. The real-time data pudding and signature value iteration are parallel processed, which brings the effect of decreasing energy loss of blockchain system, and upgrades the speed of new block generation and the bandwidth of data storing on blockchain. Computer simulation shows the proposed strategy can be effectively applied in real-time electrical data transmission application, raising the data transmission reliability with no harm to real-time data transfer function. This strategy provides a solution to guarantee data transmission safety in the digital conversion of power grid.
Keywords: blockchain; electric power data; consensus algorithm; proof of work
1. Introduction
Since 2008, when Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin, initiating the study of blockchain, blockchain technology has been leading a new global wave of technological and industrial transformation, becoming the ”prime mover” of innovative social development. Blockchain technology with open and fault-tolerant characteristics, is highly compatible with shared economic model based on distributed systems. Meantime, blockchain techniques can also solve the essential requirements of electric power and energy industry. In the construction of electric power and energy industry, blockchain as the infrastructure of digital economy combined with industry applications, can form an immutable distributed ledger, potentially solving management, financing, regulation, and privacy issues caused by numerous transaction entities and opaque data information. Extensive research and attempts have been made by industrial experts and scholars on the application of blockchain technology in electric power field, including distributed energy trading[1], electric vehicle charging pile sharing[2], enterprise energy consumption monitoring[3], carbon emission trading[4], emerging energy business applications[5], etc. Such researches mainly based upon Bitcoin blockchain system, establishing a trustworthy energy trading platform through blockchain technology, thereby reducing trust cost in traditional power trading. On the other hand, blockchain can also be seen as a decentralized, tamper-resistant, and open autonomous distributed database, suitable for the trustworthy storage and transmission of enterprise data.
However, in the context of electric power production, various sampling data need to be transmitted to dispatch control center in a timely manner, and the real-time data transmission requirements in such applications have limited the direct application of blockchain technology. This paper proposes a parallel proof-of-work algorithm for blockchain, effectively applying blockchain technology to real-time electric power data transmission scenarios, thereby significantly enhancing the reliability and anti-tampering ability of electric power data transmission.
2. Blockchain Consensus Mechanism Principles
Nowadays, blockchain is commonly used for distributed storage of transaction data. According to transactions chronological order, different transaction data are stored in different blocks, and adjacent blocks are linked through hash pointers. Figure 1 illustrates the schematic diagram of blockchain data structure.